Google Pilots New Ad Format; In-Store Addressability

According to a post by Eran Arkin, product manager at Google, the company is testing a new ad format, called +Post ads, that allows brands to promote Google+ posts across the Google Display Network. An example would be using Hangouts on Air as mastheads on YouTube. The ads are interactive by default (i.e., commenting and sharing is a default feature of all the ads, though users must be logged into Google+ to interact or to see comments and shares), can leverage all of Google’s standard display targeting capabilities and are cross-device. The ad format, which Arkin writes will be opened over the next few months to more advertisers, can be purchased via an AdWords auction, on a cost-per-engagement basis. Read more.

In-Store Addressability

The Wall Street Journal looks at how technology is being used to personalize merchandising - and maximize yield - in-store. One example: “Prism Skylabs combines video from security cameras with software to build flow charts of people's movements and uses heat maps to show which products get picked up more frequently than others.” Read more (subscription).

The Quality Of Merciful Data

Site Scout’s Ratko Vidakovic provides “5 Ways To Evaluate The Quality Of Audience Data” in an op-ed on Marketing Land. He begins, “My aim is to provide a simple framework for evaluating the quality of any particular source of audience data. To do so requires looking at the data from a variety of perspectives: Where did it come from? What mechanism does it rely on? How was it collected? How fresh is it? How much does it cost? And how does it perform?” Read it.

Impulse Ads

Social marketing tech company Getonic hopes to entice consumers to impulse shop directly from ads with a new format it’s currently testing, according to The Next Web. Right now, ads direct users to PayPal to complete transactions, but the company is making the ads completely shoppable in the next few weeks. The ad format is part of Getonic’s POPshop platform that also makes use of the social aspect of shopping. Read more.

Keyword “Programmatic”

Adaptive Medias, which bills itself as “programmatic audience and content monetization provider,” says it has acquired a real-time bidding (RTB) platform called Ember, according to a press release. Read more. The over-the-counter bulletin board company recently announced $380k in third-quarter revenue. More on PandoDaily.